John Dryden, All for Love

Having read recently Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, and desiring to read Dryden's treatment, I ordered All for Love. Dryden here is fulsome at times, and well that, but I like him best constrained.

From Dryden's All for Love, 1678

PROLOGUE: Let those find fault whose wit's so very small,
They've need to show that they can think at all

PROLOGUE: Half-wits are fleas; so little and so light,
We scarce could know they live, but that they bite.

Act I, Scene 1; VENTIDIUS:
Just, just his nature.
Virtue's his path; but sometimes 'tis too narrow
For his vast soul; and then he starts out wide,
And bounds into a vice, that bears him far
From his first course, and plunges him in ills:
But, when his danger makes him find faults,
Quick to observe, and full of sharp remorse,
He censures eagerly his own misdeeds,
Judging himself with malice to himself,
And not forgiving what as man he did,
Because his other parts are more than man. --
He must not thus be lost.

Act I, Scene 1; ANTONY:
...Help me, soldier,
To curse this madman, this industrious fool,
Who laboured to be wretched: Pr'ythee, curse me.

Act II, Scene 1; CLEOPATRA:
But I have loved with such transcendent passion,
I soared, at first, quite out of reason's view,
And now am lost above it. No, I'm proud
'Tis thus: Would Antony could see me now...

Act II, Scene 1; VENTIDIUS:
I heard you challenged him.
ANTONY: I did, Ventidius.
What think'st thou was his answer? 'Twas so tame!--
He said, he had more ways than one to die;
I had not.

Act III, Scene 1; VENTIDIUS:
I love this man, who runs to meet his ruin;
And sure the gods, like me, are fond of him:
His virtues lie so mingled with his crimes,
As would confound their choice to punish one,
And not reward the other.

Act III, Scene 1; ANTONY:
...boys, like Cupids,
Stood fanning, with their painted wings, the winds.
That played about her face. But if she smiled
A darting glory seemed to blaze abroad,
That men's desiring eyes were never wearied,
But hung upon the object: To soft flutes
The silver oars kept time; and while they played,
The hearing gave new pleasure to the sight;
And both to thought. 'Twas heaven, or something more;

Act III, Scene 1; DOLABELLA:
And should my weakness be a plea for yours?
Mine was an age when love might be excused,
When kindly warmth, and when my springing youth
Made it a debt to nature. Yours--

Act III, Scene 1; ANTONY:
Are they noble?
Methinks thou shouldst not bring them else; yet he
Is full of deep dissembling; knows no honour
Divided from his interest. Fate mistook him;
for nature meant him for a usurer:
He's fit indeed to buy, not conquer kingdoms.

Act III, Scene 1; ANTONY:
Where?--Octavia there!
[Starting back]
VENTIDIUS: What, is she poison to you?--a disease?
Look on her, view her well, and those she brings:
Are they all strangers to your eyes? has nature
No secret call, no whisper they are yours?

Act IV, Scene 1; ALEXAS:
...jealousy is like
A polished glass held to the lips when life's in doubt;
If there be breath, 'twill catch the damp, and show it.

Act V, Scene 1; ALEXAS:
Yes, I deserve it, for my ill-timed truth.
Was it for me to prop
The ruins of a falling majesty?
To place myself beneath the mighty flaw,
Thus to be crushed, and pounded into atoms,
By its o'erwhelming weight? 'Tis too presuming
For subjects to preserve that wilful power,
Which courts its own destruction.

Act V, Scene 1; ALEXAS:
O that I less could fear to lose this being,
Which, like a snowball in my coward hand,
The more 'tis grasped, the faster melts away.
Poor reason! what a wretched aid art thou!
For still, in spite of thee,
These two long lovers, soul and body, dread
Their final separation. Let me think:
What can I say, to save myself from death?
No matter what becomes of Cleopatra.

Act V, Scene 1; ANTONY:
...Ungreatful woman!
Who followed me, but as the swallow summer,
Hatching her young ones in my kindly beams,
Singing her flatteries to my morning wake:
But, now my winter comes, she spreads her wings.
And seeks the spring of Caesar.

Act V, Scene 1; ANTONY:
Think we have had a clear and glorious day
And Heaven did kindly to delay the storm,
Just till our close of evening. Ten years' love,
And not a moment lost, but all improved
To the utmost joys,--what ages have we lived?

Act V, Scene 1; CLEOPATRA:
Dull, that thou art! why 'tis to meet my love;
As when I saw him first, on Cydnus' bank,
All sparkling, like a goddess: so adorned,
I'll find him once again; my second spousals
Shall match my first in glory. Haste, haste, both,
And dress the bride of Antony.